​The story takes place in Rockingham; however, it could have
occurred anywhere in the United States or Canada.  The main
characters are Alice and Jake who have been married for
seventy-five years.  Alice was married when she was fifteen and
Jake was twenty; both were orphans so they had no family other
than their own children.  They have four children who all live a
long way from Rockingham.  Also, they have ten grandchildren
and twelve great-grandchildren, and two great-great-
grandchildren so far.  Both have lived beyond their normal life
expectancy, but they were a long way from setting any records
even for North Carolina.  When they were married, neither were
literate; however, Alice was able to finally do a little reading
and writing with help from her friends at their church.  Alice
has had several mini-strokes, is partially paralyzed, and is
confined to a wheelchair.  She has little strength in her arms
and needs Jake to push her around.               

Alice and Jake own and live in an old farmhouse out on the old
highway.  The State has recently built a new double lane
highway, so they don’t see near as much traffic as there used to
be.  Their house is a very small three bedroom with a tin roof
that Jake and his friends built right after Alice and Jake were
married.  The house has to have lightning rods attached to
prevent damage from a lightning strike.  A well and a manual
hand pump supplies water to the kitchen, but there is no indoor
bathroom.  They have an old fashion outhouse that is setting
about one hundred feet to the side of their house.  The house is
about three hundred feet from the highway out front where
everyday Jake hikes to get their mail.  The mail run is the
highlight of their day.  Alice used to say: “If we didn’t get any
junk mail, we’d get no mail at all.”  That was not true of course
as their children were always good to write until the telephone
became cheaper.  So now, each of their children call their
parents once per week; that is, until their daughter got the
“brilliant” idea of a conference call from all the siblings and
some of the grandchildren at the same time.  This transforms
four hours of calls per week from their children into one hour
per week.  All the children live at least two states away.  But,
they are good to visit both at Christmas and at least once during
the summer.  Again, all the children come at the same time both
at Christmas and in the summer.  Some of their children are
starting to get a little age on themselves, and traveling has
become more difficult for them.  And they have grandchildren
of their own which tends to keep them occupied.  One or two of
the grandchildren have made isolated visits.  But as Alice and
Jake get older, these visits are more spread out.  Seems like they
spend most of their time alone except for each other.  

Alice and Jake attended church regularly all their lives up until
about fifteen years ago.  When Alice had her mini-stokes, it
became increasingly difficult for them to go to church.  Finally
about ten years ago, they were not able to attend church at all.  
Jake just didn’t want to go without his wife.  The church people
understood, and at first they were good to visit.  But their visits
became more and more sparse until finally they never came
anymore.  Alice and Jake didn’t even know the new minister.

Alice and Jake used to run this farm, and Jake had taken side
jobs on occasions.  He once worked in a shoe repair shop and
once in a hardware store.  They had three or four cows at the
peak of their farm life.  Once they had a plow mule and a riding
horse.  All they have now are a few chickens.  They exchange
table scraps for a few eggs per day.  They sold off some of the
farmland except for the house.  Alice can’t go outside anymore,
so Jake has to tend to the chickens.  Alice used to take her
butter and eggs to the local farmer’s market, where she really
enjoyed the fellowship with the other farmer’s wives.  Jake is
still in relatively good physical shape, but is a little thin.  Both
Alice and Jake still have good minds and attribute that to their
good diet with little sugar or fat.  They always remarked that
people’s poor diet and lack of physical activity were their own
worse enemy when it comes to health.  Another thing unusual
was that although they owned a television, Alice and Jake only
watched a few shows such as the religious programs on Sunday
morning, Lawrence Welk on Saturday night, and a few good
wholesome movies such as Hallmark Hall of Fame, or maybe
some Disney shows.  Jake used to watch some college basketball
especially the North Carolina teams in the Atlantic Coast
Conference.  They only have antennae television; they didn’t
want cable as they thought people could waste a lot of time
watching television.  They could tell you nightmares about
people they knew who did nothing but eat, sleep, and watch
television.  Most of Alice and Jake’s friends had already passed
away.  Friends they were able to keep were either neighbors or
people their children’s age.  They did play scrabble and some
card games mainly to keep their minds active.

As you can tell from the above description, the daily lives of
Alice and Jake had been somewhat non-eventful recently.  Their
children and the church people had suggested they needed to go
to a rest home after Alice had survived her mini-strokes over ten
years ago.  To them, a rest home is where you go to die.  They
were not ready to die back then, and they are not ready to die
today.  Alice knows she should be in a rest home as she can see
how much extra work Jake has to do just to take care of her.  
But Jake says he enjoys doing things for her, and that he doesn’t
want his wife in a rest home.  Jake said he heard an insurance
man say one time that the average life expectancy of someone
who enters a nursing home is less than one year.  Also at rest
homes, they commingle the physically impaired with the
mentally impaired.  Since he and his wife still had their full
mental capacities, they want to be treated with respect.  To keep
their cost reasonable, rest homes have to treat their elderly
patients almost like children, such as restricting where they go
and what they eat.  Jake said he had visited rest homes before
and that if you went during the week, there was an offensive
smell of urine all over the place.  It seems many of their elderly
tenants have bladder control problems, and the staff gets behind
on keeping this cleaned up.  On Sundays, the rest homes
evidently put on more staff to control the smell problem.  Also
Jake maintains that rest homes puts drugs or something in the
elderly people’s food to keep them inactive and peaceful.  Jake
says he’s not trying to upset the apple cart; he just wants his
wife and himself to live at home.

This day in early June started no differently than any other.  
They had a nice breakfast that Jake had prepared.  Jake wheeled
Alice into the kitchen where she watched him clean up.  She
would certainly fuss at him if he didn’t put things back in the
exact right place.  After living with a person for seventy-five
years, you not only learn to love them more and more each day,
but you establish a bonding that is forever.  You don’t even have
to talk to each other if you don’t want to; you know what the
other spouse is thinking just from the look on their face.  They
retired back to their den, which was also their living room.  Jake
liked to place Alice close to the front windows in this room so
she could see him most of the way to the mailbox and back.  
Jake was a little slow, but he didn’t yet use a cane; however, he
had mentioned that it was about time for him to get one.  It took
about ten minutes for Jake to get to the mailbox and back.  The
middle third of the driveway to the mailbox was obscured with
some trees and tall bushes.  So Alice could see the first third and
final third of his trek.  As usual, Jake kissed Alice on the
forehead as he left to get the mail.  Jake was tall (just over six
feet) and was good to hold his shoulders straight.  Alice had a
mild case of osteoarthritis, which caused her shoulders to stoop
somewhat, but not too bad.

Soon Jake disappeared behind the bushes, but then reappeared
again after about two minutes.  He opened the mailbox, but
found nothing in it.  He knew the mail-lady had come since the
outgoing bill he had put in the box was gone.  So Jake waived to
Alice, blew her a kiss, and started back toward the house.  He
soon disappeared behind the bushes again.  Alice was thinking
to herself just how God had blessed them with such a good long
life, relatively good health, and a nice family even if they all did
live a long ways away.  She remembered when she was not much
more than a child when she had first met Jake.  He was
delivering groceries from an old general store to the orphanage
where she lived.  They both knew instantly when they first met
that they were looking at their future spouse.  “He just couldn’t
keep his eyes off me.  He was such a handsome young man, just
full of the vigor of life.  He liked to talk.  He sure swept me off
my feet.  He said I was the prettiest girl he had ever seen.  Men
probably say that to all the girls, but I believed him.  The head
mistress of the orphanage knew I really liked him, but she
probably didn’t think I would elope with him, but I did.  We
were married by a preacher down in South Carolina.  Back then
you had to be sixteen to get married in North Carolina.  I
wonder what the rules are today.  Seventy-five years.  That’s a
long time.  Some people don’t even live that long.  My, how the
Lord has blessed us!”

“Wonder what’s keeping Jake?  He should be back in sight by
now.”  Alice tried to reposition herself to see if she could get a
glimpse of him.  But he was nowhere to be seen.  She started to
worry.  “Please God, please don’t let anything happen to Jake.  
Take me, but please don’t take Jake.”  Then she noticed the
phone just six feet in front of her on the dresser.  “He may have
had a heart attack.  If I can get the rescue people out here soon
enough, they may be able to save him.”  But Alice had very little
strength in her arms.  That wheelchair was mighty hard to
move, but she just had to do it.  Even if Jake were already dead,
she had to do it.  So she started trying to turn those big wheels.  
She was able to move it a little, maybe several inches.  She knew
she had to do more.  What could she do to get a rush of
adrenaline to get the necessary energy to move those wheels?  
She worked and worked and finally was able to move it another
three or four inches.  Then she tried again and again.  “God,
please give me the energy to do this.  I know I can do it.”  She
was able to move it another three or four inches, but she surely
did have a long way to go.  “Six feet’s not much, but sometimes it
can be as far as the other side of the world.  It’s ironic that my
task involves six feet.  That’s how deep they bury you in the
ground.”

Alice knew she didn’t have much time.  But as she struggled
with her wheel chair, her thoughts wandered back to when they
had their first child.  “My, was Jake proud of his daughter,
Alicia?  She was a pretty baby.  Jake wanted to name her Alice,
just like her mother.  I wanted the baby to have an identity of
her own.  So Alicia was a good compromise.  Then a couple
years later William came along.  He was a big baby; everyone
said he would be a football player someday.  Well, they were
right about that.  One day when William was just barely
walking, Jake took him to the mailbox with him.  Jake put him
down and took his eyes off him for just a split second while he
was opening the box.  That gave William the time he needed to
head toward the center of the road.  You could hear the brakes
squealing all the way back at the house.  William was lucky that
day.  The car was able to stop in time.  Jake was so ashamed and
remorseful that he had let that happen.  I forgave him.  I wonder
if I would have still felt that way if the car had hit little Billy?”  
Alice had mustered enough energy to move the chair another
three or four inches.  “Only two thirds of the way left.  I know I
can do this.  I’ve got to do it for Jake “

“Funny thing, when you have had a couple of children, the third
and fourth seem like ‘old hat.’”  That is, we the adults know
what to do and what to expect.  We are pretty good at raising
children by this time.  The problem with this is that we expect
the new baby to have this same attitude.  We know how to raise
babies; so we expect the new baby to just fall in line.  We
encourage the older children to help raise their younger sister
or brother.  Some babies may do this, but not Donald.  He surely
had a mind of his own.  He turned out OK, but he did give us
some anxious moments especially the time he ran away from
home when he was about twelve.  The Police in Albemarle
picked him up.  He had given them a fake name, at least to start
with.  There was this big old two hundred and fifty pound
sergeant on the police force there.  He showed Don a jail cell.  
He told Don that he might be spending the rest of his life there
if he didn’t tell him the truth.  We filed a missing person’s
report with the Rockingham Police, and it didn’t take the
Albemarle Police very long to realize who they had.”  Alice knew
her time was running out.  She had now moved the wheel chair
over half way.  She was so happy she was able to do this much,
but knew she had to continue.  She was really working up a
sweat.  Sweat beads were dripping from her forehead.  She
pulled and pulled, and she pushed and pushed.  She was now
only two feet from that telephone.  She was thinking how
careful she would need to be when she got to the phone.  If she
dropped it on the floor, she would find herself in another almost
helpless situation.

“Then when our last baby, John, came along, it was again a
different situation.  He seemed to like Donald more than his
older brother and sister.  The two oldest ones always played
together, and the two youngest ones always played together.  
The fact that he had a playmate almost his own age made a
difference.”  Alice was just about to the telephone now.  She did
one last exertion, and then she was there.  It seems like it took
her about two hundred years, but it actually took only about two
minutes.  She was careful to pick up the phone with both hands
since she couldn’t run the risk of dropping it.  She activated the
phone and went to the section that stored numbers.  She found
the rescue squad and calmly told them her name and where she
lived.  She told them that Jake was down in her blind spot and
feared he had had a heart attack.  The dispatcher told her to stay
on the line with them.  It was only a few minutes when she
could hear the siren of the rescue truck headed her way.  
“Thank you Lord, thank you for giving me the strength to do
that.”

As she saw the rescue truck turning into their driveway, she
could now see Jake walking toward her.  “Thank you Lord,
thank you for giving Jake back to me for just a few more days at
least.  The rescue men were very professional and nice to them.  
They asked Jake what happened.  He said: “I was feeling a little
faint, and decided I’d better sit down a couple of minutes.  If
there was something wrong with me, I didn’t want to fall and
break a hip or something like that.”  The rescue men convinced
Jake that he needed to come with them to the hospital so the
doctor could look at him.  The doctors told Jake he was OK, and
that he would probably be one of the pallbearers at their funeral.

That afternoon, after everything had calmed down, Alice and
Jake were sitting in their den.  They knew that neither of them
had that long to live, and that they could die at any moment.  
Jake said: “Let’s live each day as if it were the last day of our
lives.  Life is precious, and we need to be thankful for what God
has seen fit to provide for us.  One day at home under our own
care is worth a month in a nursing home.  We don’t want to be a
burden to our children.  If I ever get so I can’t take care of the
both of us, we will need to move to a rest home.”  Alice replied:
“I thought I had lost you back then.  The next time you sit down
on the job, please sit where I can see you and from where you
can waive to me that you are OK.”